


come hell, high water

by erebones



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Mild Gore, Pining, fjord is thicc and you can't change my mind, greater restoration's a boss ass bitch, mostly spoiler free, temporarily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 11:18:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: In the dregs of a backwater town, in the aftermath of a terrible battle, Fjord relies on Caleb for a little TLC.





	come hell, high water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [losebetter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/gifts).



“The beast prowls at night,” Fjord announces as he approaches the table. The others return his glance with a variety of expressions: grim, roadweary, determined. Nott’s yellow eyes flash a query at him over her mask, and Fjord nods. “I think it’s better to move fast, but I ain’t the leader of this little ragtag band, so y’all tell me what you want to do.”

“I mean, I’m fuckin’ tired,” Beau says, “but the bounty on this thing is no joke, and it’s been terrorizing the townsfolk for weeks. If we can get a little rest in before we head out, I’ll be all right.”

“If we wait until tomorrow night, what’s the worst that would happen?” Yasha asks quietly. Her mismatched eyes meet Fjord’s in the dim light, backed by the gentle rasp of her voice. She’s only recently returned to them, appearing in the midst of battle like a grim angel ascending from the earth’s blackened crust, and all of them are the better for her presence.

“It comes back. With greater numbers—no telling how many. The Headwoman says they haven’t finished counting those who are missing, but it’s upwards of twenty.”

Beau makes a miserable scoffing sound in the back of her throat. “ _Twenty?_ How many more have they got to lose?”

“Too many.” Caduceus stands up out of his chair, impossibly tall, hands braced on his narrow hips. He was the last to arrive at the inn, the final bastion this town has against the creature ravaging their borders—he's been out in the square since they arrived, doling out what healing he could. “We can’t wait another day.” His voice shakes a little as he meets all of their eyes in turn. He's the most weary of them all—if he goes, they go.

“I’m in,” Yasha says quietly; Jester is on her heels, nodding as she taps a nervous rhythm on the table with her claws. Beau nods, too. Across the table, Nott’s golden eyes dart like lightning-bugs trapped in a glass. The subtle dip and lift of her white mask is assent.

“Caleb?” Fjord asks when the last voice has yet to be heard. “What d’you think?”

Their resident wizard lifts his head. There are bags under his eyes, and his stubbled cheek is still smeared with soot, but his blue eyes pierce clearly through the haze of the room as he murmurs, “I will defer to the group.”

“You always say that,” Jester says. She reaches out, the tattered edge of her bloodstained sleeve dangling, and pats his arm. “You know you are allowed to have your own opinions, Cay-leb.”

Caleb’s nostrils flare at the gentle touch, but he doesn’t pull away. “I _think_ ,” he says, teeth gritted, “that we are at an impasse. Waiting will provoke more death. But we none of us are at our best right now. Nott nearly died two hours ago. Herr Clay has been elbow-deep in people’s entrails trying to keep them alive. We are not rested, we are not well.” His eyes meet Fjord’s over the table, strewn with empty tankards and the pathetic remnants of Jester’s last healing kit. “But if you say we must fight this thing tonight, then I will be by your side.”

Fjord swallows. He isn’t sure how he came to be the de facto leader, here—probably something to do with being the last one standing by the time they met with the handful of Crownsguard left at the town’s edge. And that only by virtue of Caleb’s well-timed haste spell that kept him just abreast of the undead. And there will be more if they wait any longer.

He looks to Caduceus. His brow is grim and steady, eyes sharp, his knuckles turning white against the table. “All right,” Fjord says. “Let’s rest up. We have a few hours—let’s make the most of them.”

The town is nondescript, stained a shade of brownish-grey by the scorched desert flats to the west. Winds blow in like gales off the coast, coarse and gritty; they leave a fine layer of dirt on everything and everyone. Fjord thinks it’s no place to live, but somehow the inhabitants eke out a living at the fringes of this deadly wilderness. Or they did, before this nameless, faceless creature came and began to devour the town from the outside in. Slowly. Picking at the fringes until it was too hungry and insatiable to ignore.

The Mighty Nein stumbled upon it by accident. The first inclination Fjord had that something was off was the dead person coming down the road toward them—pretty big warning sign, all things considered. One thing led to another, and now they’re here, stretched thin to the limit, waiting with red-rimmed eyes for the sun to set.

Fjord is too anxious to sleep, so he sits on the front porch of the inn with his feet braced on the steps and watches the withered town square prepare itself for another night’s onslaught. After a little while, there’s a tickle in his nose, and he buries a sneeze in the crook of his arm as Frumpkin winds around his leg and stares at him balefully.

“Frump.” Ragged and threadbare, Caleb’s voice emerges from the inn door behind him, echoed by the snap of a finger. Frumpkin blinks out of existence, leaving not so much as a whisker behind.

“Thanks,” Fjord says. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “You can’t sleep either, huh?”

Caleb plops down beside him, a sad, dusty pile of threadbare coat and tangled scarf, and shakes his head. “Herr Clay was passing out some kind of herb to help with sleep, but I didn’t want to risk it.”

“You were hurt, earlier. You should at least try to get some rest.”

Caleb huffs through his nose. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” Fjord says doubtfully. He reaches for him, intending to put his hand on his shoulder, and Caleb jerks away with a muffled sound of complaint. Like a cat scampering out of reach. “Caleb.”

“ _Verdammt_.” With brutal, efficient motions, Caleb unfastens his woolen waistcoat and holds it out of the way for Fjord to see.

Fjord winces. Under the place where Caleb’s book holsters fit against his body, something has raked through cloth and skin, leaving ugly parallel scratches behind. They’ve scabbed over by now, dark red curdling nearly to black. Fjord is no expert, but to his untrained eye the skin around is pink and tender-looking. When he reaches out to touch, carefully, Caleb’s side is warm. Too warm.

“You should have Jester look at this before we go out again, Cay.”

“Jester is tapped,” Caleb replies, tight-lipped, although something in his demeanor has softened at Fjord’s touch. “And Caduceus should save himself for the battle ahead.”

Fjord thinks of the medical kit he’d picked up a week or so ago. A _just in case_ measure born of watching his friends fall in battle too many times. He was but a novice to Jester’s medical know-how, but he figured something was better than nothing.

“Will you let me take a look?” he asks. “I might have somethin’ that could help.”

Caleb gives him a startled look followed by a nod. That’s good enough for him. Fjord pushes himself to standing with only a slight groan of complaint from his weary body, and goes to root through his pack upstairs.

When he returns, the shadows have already lengthened in the town square. The handful of people that were passing back and forth across it, pursuing last-minute defense measures against the midnight onslaught, had dwindled to a scattered two or three, darting at the fringes, eyes bruised with sleeplessness and fear. Caleb has sequestered himself on a bench pushed against the outer wall. Fjord sits gingerly beside him, medicine kit in hand.

“Let me see?” he asks, because he’s learned from experience that Caleb takes poorly to being surprised. With a token sigh of protest, Caleb turns toward him a little and lifts his shirt again.

“It’s really not that bad, Fjord.”

Fjord pays him no mind and gets to work. He’ll never confess it, but he likes the way Caleb says his name. _Fee-ord_. The extra syllable is warm and comforting now, like a secret, a gentle smile shared between two people. Yasha has trained herself out of it and Jester sometimes stresses it just to get a rise out of him, but Caleb clings to it quietly in spite of every correction. Moments of tenderness between them are rare, and Fjord clings to this one fiercely.

Caleb lets out a quiet hiss of pain, breaking his concentration and his reverie. Fjord sits back a bit. “Sorry. You good?”

“Fine.” Caleb’s mouth is taut, pinched paper-white at the edges. He holds perfectly still as Fjord dabs a little healing balm on the freshly cleaned wound. “Are you finished?”

Fjord withdraws slowly, scanning his face. Caleb looks back. He’s almost expressionless, but there’s a pucker to his brow that means _please don’t push me_. Fjord sighs. “Yes. But please, for your sake and mine, stay in the back this evening. Behind me.”

“Behind _you_.”

“Well you don’t have to sound so fuckin’ disbelieving about it,” Fjord huffs. “I’m not a complete wilting flower.”

“Anymore,” Caleb finishes, a gentle teasing prod. He must be feeling a little better. “All right then, Fjord. If it will make you feel better.”

Fjord glances up at him as he tidies his kit back together. “It will.”

Caleb nods and looks back over the town square. He presses a hand to his bandaged side as if testing Fjord’s work. Maybe it’s not as fine a job as Jester would do, but it’s more than good enough, and Caleb seems satisfied. “Gods be with us tonight,” he murmurs, Zemnian accent curling around the blessing like some around charred wood. Fjord shivers a little. He doesn’t go in for the gods much, Empire-sanctioned or otherwise, but if a few words whispered in a hoarse voice will turn the tide for them later, he’ll throw everything he has behind them when this is done.

* * *

There’s an old saying about best laid plans, but Fjord can’t remember quite how it goes when he’s laying on his back, feeling the warmth of his own blood leave him in a steady pulsing stream. It hurts less than drowning. The sky above him is clear, for one—for another, his lungs still work perfectly fine, dragging in great huffs of cold, clean air. It’s almost enough to ease the terror of dying.

His shoulder is a mess. He’s pretty sure the creature, whatever it is, has torn his arm clean off, because whenever he tries to move his right hand to summon his falchion, nothing happens. A shame, really. He doubts this is the kind of growth his patron had had in mind when it plucked him from the ocean floor.

There’s a low, guttural sound, like bone crackling together in a giant throat. The thing is back. Its small, pitiful horde of zombie townsfolk had fallen first, pretty quickly, cowed to ash by Jester’s sacred flame. The beast was a harder fight. The last thing in Fjord’s recent memory resurfaces like a slow, ancient whale taking one last gasp of air before sinking to die in cold and silence: the thrust of his falchion, the crackle of witch bolt. An ugly scream and the clasp of mighty jaws around his torso. Above him, the stars are blackened by the shape of the beast. Is he imagining it, or is it favoring its left foreleg?

“Hello there beautiful,” Fjord murmurs dazedly. He’s high on the pain, he knows it. Head soaked in it, wrapped in shock, hidden away from the harsh reality of what’s about to happen. He fights to close his right hand. Nothing. A strand of drool plops against his cheek and he gags a little at the smell. Clumsily, he focuses his mind. It veers like a drunk trying to steer a cart down a winding street, and he sees the glow of the falcion materialize a few feet away. Just out of reach.

“Well,” Fjord sighs. He swears the midnight sky is full of eyes. “We had a good run, didn’t we.”

“Ja, friend, that we did.”

Fjord startles. He thought he was alone with the creature. He looks, and blinks, and looks again. Caleb is standing there, barely upright, right hand pressed to the place where Fjord had bandaged him up just a few hours before. In his left is Fjord’s falchion. Glowing faintly blue, trimmed in barnacles, dripping seawater off the blade in great wet swathes until the barren soil is black with it. And at the tip, where the gleaming point is razor-sharp, an angry lick of flame blackens the metal with arcane char.

“That’s a neat trick,” Fjord hears himself say, and then the blade is plunged deep into a snarling face. There is bright light and a gush of saltwater. And then silence.

* * *

Fjord wakes up suddenly, like someone had snapped a finger and pulled him from sleep. He is alone, as far as he can tell—laid flat on his back in a bed without blankets, just a sheet pulled up to his ribs and his head propped on a flat pillow. Looking down at himself, he sees crisscrosses of bandages over his bare chest, his right arm splinted close to his body and bound there. He wiggles his fingers experimentally and feels a rush of relief to see them respond.

As if summoned by the twitch of his hand, the door creaks open. Fjord watches with detached interest as Caleb enters, bearing a tray. He seems very focused on not dropping it; he doesn’t even spare a glance for the bed, staring instead at the bowl and pitcher balanced on the tray as he closes the door with his foot and leans against it to catch the latch. Then he moves, very deliberately, toward the bedside table.

Fjord has the presence of mind to wait until the tray is set safely down before he whispers hoarsely, “Caleb.”

Caleb startles, then all but clambers on the bed, wringing his hands fit to pull his fingers loose. “Fjord. You’re awake, thank the gods.”

Fjord winces at the onslaught of nervous energy, bright like sunlight in the eyes after a long, dark night. “How long’ve I been out?”

“The entire night and the better part of a day.” He appears to calm himself, stilling the rhythm of his hands, and seats himself on the edge of the bed. The mattress tips a little and Fjord lets himself lean into Caleb’s knee. “You very nearly died, Fjord.”

“Very nearly ain’t bad,” Fjord drawls sleepily. “I’ve had worse. Jester didn’t have to use one of her diamonds, did she?”

“ _Nein_ ,” Caleb answers, giving him a strange, sideways look. “I’m sorry, but do you mean to say you’ve been… dead before?”

Fjord blinks. Ah. He’d said that out loud. “Sort of... feels like it, sometimes. Y'know, with the shipwreck and all.” He chews nervously at his bottom lip. It's been a little while since their seabound adventures, long enough that the ache of discovery and loss has begun to fade, but he's in no state to stand up to an interrogation, even the gentle sort that Caleb would administer. But Caleb doesn’t press him. Instead he makes a small ruckus fussing over Fjord, checking his shoulder—healed over with fresh skin that is still tender to the touch—and making him drink a little water.

“Why the splint?” he asks once Caleb has helped him sit up against the headboard. “It feels all connected.”

“It is, but it was a bit touch and go. Caduceus had to sleep before he could finish… putting you back together.” Caleb looks a bit grey around the edges. “The thing tore your arm off, Fjord.”

Fjord pales and looks down at his hand again. It seems fine. A little sore at the shoulder joint, but his fingers snap on command, and he can feel the warmth when Caleb reaches out to hold his hand. “Am I… gonna be all right?”

“With a little time, _ja_. He burned a pretty powerful healing spell on you.”

“And the beast?”

“Dead.” A flicker of a proud smile touches Caleb’s cheeks. “Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to _me?_ ” Fjord wracks his memory, blurry and stretched in places, but he swears— “I think you mean thanks to _you_.”

Caleb shakes his head. “I was tapped. Completely. Nott was on the other side of the battlefield and everyone else was down. You summoned your falchion right at my feet.”

“But you killed it.”

“We killed it together.” Caleb squeezes his hand and Fjord relishes the slight ache that travels up his forearm. It means he’s still together. Still _whole_. He smiles back, a flicker of warmth kindling in his chest.

“All right. If you say so.” He squeezes back weakly. He’ll have to ask Beau for some good arm exercises if he wants to swing his falchion around anytime soon. “Where’s… everyone else?”

“Resting, mostly. Jester has been sleeping all day. Beau is drinking downstairs with Nott, last I checked.” His eyes go hazy for a moment. _Frumpkin_ , Fjord thinks. “ _Ja,_ still downstairs.”

“You don’t have to, uh, tend me. If you’d rather join them.”

“Hff. I am good. I came to clean you up, in fact,” he nods toward the bowl and pitcher, “but perhaps you would prefer some privacy now that you are awake?”

Fjord considers this. He does feel a bit horrible, still wearing last night’s trousers, his bandages tinged with old blood and yellow with sweat. And he smells foul, he realizes now. Like blood and whatever putrid fluids the beast had expelled when Caleb slew it. But his arm feels heavy at his side, and everything aches as he sits up from the pillows…

“I don’t know if I can manage it alone,” he admits. Nothing wrong with accepting a little help from a friend. And if he’s caught that friend admiring him now and then, and given silent admiration in turn, well, that’s just a bonus.

“Let me call for a proper tub,” Caleb says. He pats Fjord absently on the chest and leaves, scarf trailing behind him.

When he returns a little while later, he’s shadowed by two of the surviving village folk, spotty, earnest youths with a wooden tub who spend the next several minutes hauling tepid water to fill it. It’s hardly the Pillow Trove, but it’s more than adequate, and Caleb tips them well for their efforts.

“Hail the conquering heroes?” Fjord suggests when they leave.

Caleb shrugs out of his scarf and tunic and shrugs. “The mood’s a bit more somber than that, after everything, but _ja_ , they are certainly grateful. And eager to repay us in any way they can that doesn’t involve coin.”

“Understandable.” Fjord allows himself to be hoisted to standing—whale’s tears, but the scrawny fellow is stronger than he looks—and then he twitches when Caleb starts on the fastenings of his trousers. “Uh.”

Caleb gives him a short, impatient look through his fringe, but stops. “I assume you do not wish to bathe while clothed.”

“Well, no.”

“Therefore…”

“Can you… turn around?” Fjord asks, pained.

“Very well. But if you fall over, do not cry to me about it.” There’s a hint of a smile playing on his face as he turns his back obediently, still well within arm’s reach. Fjord flips him the bird in silence and wrestles one-handed with his trousers and smallclothes.

“All right. Um… I’m done.”

“Good work,” Caleb says softly. It’s more sincere than Fjord was expecting, and he blushes a little as Caleb takes his arm and helps him to the tub. “It’s not very warm, I’m afraid, but it’s clean and there is soap.”

“That’s all right. I’m used to cold baths.”

Caleb cocks an eyebrow. “Ah yes. Sailor.”

In silence, and with only a little splashing, Fjord manages to sit himself in the tub. It’s almost comically small—his knees poke up above the water and the excess slops onto the floor every time he shifts his weight—but he feels better already, and starts scooping handfuls of it over his chest.

“Easy, easy. We should remove your bandages first.”

There’s a rickety chair and little table on the far wall opposite the bed, and Caleb drags the chair over. It puts him a little higher than Fjord, seated nearly on the floor, but it’s a good angle to roll up his sleeves and begin divesting Fjord of his bandages. One by one they come away and are dropped in a damp pile on the floor, baring patches of new skin. Whatever spell or salve Caduceus had scraped together while he slept had done good work. Caleb seems to agree.

“You are looking much better,” he pronounces softly, brushing his fingers along a healed strip of flesh below Fjord’s ribs. It’s nearly a mirror image for the gash Caleb had sustained the day before. In a moment of folly, Fjord reaches for the hem of Caleb’s shirt and then pauses.

“Your injury,” he explains when Caleb only blinks owlishly at him. “From yesterday.”

“Ah.” Caleb pulls his shirt up willingly to expose healthy pink skin and a neat row of stitches where the deeper cut hadn’t quite healed over. “Good as new, nearly. We are clean out of healing potions, however, so we must be more stinting with our good deeds until we arrive at a bigger town.”

“I hate to say it, but I think I’m alright with that.” Fjord flexes his right hand, now free of the splints. His arm still aches a bit, and his fist is looser than it normally is. His stomach turns a bit to think of his arm lying unattached all night while Caduceus slept—gods forbid, if he had _woken up_ like that—and he looks away.

“You will heal,” Caleb says firmly, one hand gripping the new skin of his shoulder. “It will take a little patience, but I have faith in you.”

Fjord plasters a half-hearted smile in place. “Maybe I should learn to swing a blade left-handed. Just in case.”

“It is certainly possible,” Caleb says with a short nod. He produces a little knob of soap and begins lathering it along Fjord’s shoulder and chest. “I was born left-handed myself, but as a child I taught myself to be ambidextrous in some things.”

“Really?” Fjord asks, impressed. “Like what?”

“Writing, of course. Many of my household chores, except the ones I disliked.” A bit of a smile touches his face again, and Fjord focuses on that instead of the complaints of his body as Caleb massages soap into his arm from collarbone to fingers.

“That’s really impressive, Caleb,” Fjord says earnestly, and is rewarded with a faint blush. With only a bit of ginger stubble crawling up his cheeks, Caleb’s ginger skin betrays him easily. “I mean it. You’re mighty clever. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you blow me away again.”

Caleb blushes darker. “You are starting to sound like Nott,” he murmurs, each syllable clipped with embarrassment.

“Is that a bad thing?” Fjord asks. He flexes his hand as Caleb sluices clean water over the soapy parts. “It does a man good to hear he’s good at things now and again.”

Caleb’s brow is furrowed as he spreads soap along Fjord’s back. “It is not good manners to be overly prideful.”

“I don’t think any of us would accuse you of bein’ _overly_ anything.” Fjord feels a firm prod to his spine and leans forward obediently, allowing Caleb to reach soapy hands all the way down to his sacrum. His breath comes short in the chest a moment, and then he regathers his thoughts. “There’s a balance, I reckon. Confidence ain’t a bad thing.”

“You are very confident,” Caleb says, close to his ear. He’s working on Fjord’s left shoulder now, and occasionally scooping down to lather his chest. Fjord grips the sides of the tub and presses his thighs together a little harder.

“Thank you. I, ah. Don't always feel like it. But it's what the group needs, right?”

“Hmmmm.” Caleb sounds... almost disapproving. Fjord turns his head, but Caleb is bowed over his forearm, hair dangling over his face and hiding his expression. Then he sits up, just out of view where he’s perched on the stool behind Fjord’s back. “Open your mouth.”

“I… what?”

Caleb reaches around and touches Fjord’s chin lightly. “Let me see.”

 _Oh_. Now it’s Fjord’s turn to blush. He’s deeply thankful for his dark skin as he opens his mouth obediently and feels Caleb’s forefinger slip inside. It’s been a good long while since he last picked at his tusks—not since before Hupperdook, an age and half a continent ago—and though they’re not quite sticking out of his mouth all the time, there’s something fairly substantial there for Caleb to feel. He leans back a little and hums at the feel of Caleb’s chest against his back, warm and surprisingly sturdy.

“What do you think?” Fjord asks quietly when Caleb withdraws, probing his miniature tusks with his tongue. “They’ve got a ways to go yet.”

“They’re very distinguished.” Caleb scoots the stool around, smiling, and fishes the soap off the surface of the water. “No less handsome at all.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you kindly.” Fjord rubs his chin with his good hand. He knows he’s good-looking, objectively, and perhaps he attributed part of that to not having fearsome teeth like most of his brethren. But hearing it from Caleb was… unexpected. “Y’know, I take it back.”

Caleb scoots his chair around the tub a little more. “Hmmm? Take what back?”

Fjord meets his eyes. He’s soaping Fjord’s left leg now, starting at the knee and working down below the water to his ankle and back again, sleeves rolled up above the elbows to keep his shirt dry. Every movement is steady and sure, no sign of uncertainty at all. Fjord could never put his hands on someone so self-assuredly like this, even a close friend like Caleb. He would be shaking in his boots at the prospect, and yet Caleb is happy to play nursemaid. Had been ready to sponge-bathe his unconscious body, for goodness’ sake.

“Fjord?” Caleb prompts. He times the query with a long, slow stroke of the soap up Fjord’s thigh, and he jumps a little in his bathwater.

“I just—I think you’re, uh, more confident than I gave you credit for,” he babbles, cursing himself for being such a light touch. Caleb is all business, gentle but brusque, and here Fjord is, warm and loose and a little bit turned on in a tiny bath that’s murky with his own blood and grime. He looks away, eyes latching onto the safety of the small window, and doesn’t make a sound as Caleb rubs his thigh clean beneath the water.

“Relax, Fjord,” Caleb murmurs. He moves the chair again, just a little, so that he’s facing Fjord head-on, and puts his hands on Fjord’s knees. “You’ve got a bad scrape on your leg that needs washing.” He waits a moment. “Come, come, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. The water is nearly impenetrable, anyway.” He squeezes Fjord’s knee and gives a half-smile. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Fjord huffs irritably and lets his legs slide open. “I’m just not used to bein’ all… naked.”

Caleb coughs out a laugh. “We’ve bathed together before, the lot of us. It’s just bodies.”

“In Zadash, you mean?”

“Mmm. And that stream outside of Hupperdook. And the beach outside of Nicodranas. And…”

“Yeah, yeah, all right. That was different, okay?”

Caleb peers at him through his eyelashes as he runs the soap along the crease of Fjord’s hip. “How so?”

Damn the man. He must know how beautiful his eyes are, especially like this, framed by messy hair that curls and frizzes in the damp of the bath, his cheeks all rosy and befreckled. Fjord’s stomach flips and he looks at the water. Bad idea. The water is murky, yes, but still far from opaque, and he can see his own cock bobbing gently an inch or two below the surface.

“Well that was… that was all of us. I’m used to that. Sailor’s quarters are much the same. This is, um.” He swallows. Caleb is washing the aforementioned scrape, acquired somehow at a point high up on his inner thigh. It stings a bit in the water, but Caleb’s touch is very gentle, and that’s it’s own special kind of pain. “I don’t know. It’s more intimate, I suppose.” He bites very hard on his lower lip as he says this, and tries not to think of Caleb’s hand moving a touch to the right.

Caleb finishes washing the wound and withdraws, setting the soap down. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, _mein freund_ ,” he says softly. “I promise you will feel better for the wash. Let me just fetch you a towel.”

“Caleb, wait.” He reaches out with his right arm, unthinking, and shouts with pain at the unexpected flexion of his shoulder. “Fuck! Stupid shoulder...”

“Easy there. You’re all right.” Caleb kneels back to a crouch and massages his arm, taking care with the place where his shoulder meets his body. The bright flare of pain recedes to a dull ache, and Fjord bites curses back behind his teeth. Caleb’s hands gentle and grow still. “Better?”

Fjord just presses his lips together and nods. His erection has dimmed a little, but Caleb’s careful, undemanding touch is threatening to summon it back. “Better.”

“Good.” Caleb doesn’t pull away. His blue eyes are intense and very, very close. “Did you need me for something?”

Fjord takes a breath and holds it against the pounding of his heart. His chest feels tight with it, pulsing behind his eyes and down to… other regions, but he can’t make it stop. He can’t act, and yet he can’t pull away, can’t dismiss the evidence of his own mind.

“Fjord,” Caleb says softly, touching his cheek. It gives him permission, somehow. Breaks the spell. Fjord leans in and closes the distance.

Caleb smells like ale this close, like he—or someone else (Beauregard)—had splashed a bit on his collar. His mouth is very warm. Inviting. Part of him had been expecting Caleb to pull back, stiff and prudish, but instead the wizard opens for him, and Fjord cannot resist.

Fjord’s lips part and one half-grown tusk catches on the soft silkiness of Caleb’s inner lip. Caleb gasps, but before he can break away to apologize, Fjord’s hair is seized in an implacable grip and Caleb’s mouth is hot and open against his. He wasn’t expecting this—to be kissed like he _means_ it. Caleb is so quick to defer to the group, to hang back, and Fjord had assumed he would follow the leader in this as well. Oh, how wrong he was.

They break apart with a long, slow, wet sound and just stare at each other for a moment. Fjord is breathing hard, hanging onto the sides of the tub for dear life. Caleb’s eyes drop and he flushes, wiping his mouth. “I, er… apologize for my forwardness…”

Fjord balks. “Apologize? For—fuck, Cay, for _what_? That was…” His goddamn _toes_ are tingling. He shakes his head like a dog out of water, trying to get his thoughts in order. “That was somethin’ else. I was the one to start it, anyway.”

“Yes, but you are… you are injured. And, ah, compromised.” Caleb is picking nervously at his fingers, beet red and hardly daring to make eye contact. Fjord has to put a stop to this.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, reaching for him with his bad arm. It doesn’t matter—Caleb comes easily, nuzzling in close again to kiss him softly. There’s a little less teeth involved this time, but Fjord’s blood still runs hotter, and he curls his water-soft claws gently into the nape of Caleb’s neck until he shivers.

“Oh…”

“That’s all right. Yeah?” Fjord scratches lightly, not nearly enough to break the skin—more like a slightly prickly massage. “You like that?”

All the breath punches out of Caleb at those words, and when he sucks it back in, Fjord’s name goes with it. “I told you you were confident,” he gasps. Now it’s his turn to cling to the tub’s edge, knuckles gone white with strain. “You’ve changed.”

“How d’you mean?” Fjord asks, going still.

“I remember you in, in Hupperdook.” Caleb is blushing still, but he relaxes into Fjord’s side now, heedless of the dampness seeping through his thin white shirt. “Barely able to string sentences together when a pretty woman flirted with you. It’s been months now and here...”

“Ah.” Fjord’s face runs hot, and he runs a damp hand over his mouth to quell it. “That was… different. I’m not so good with, with the ladies. I mean, I can fake it… up to a point. And then it’s. Well, it’s not really my cup of tea.”

Understanding blooms on Caleb’s face and he nods, pushing damp hair out of Fjord’s eyes. “I see. Well, I hope… I hope my advances were not similarly troubling to you.”

“I’ve already told you, they’re not. It’s _you_ , Cay, of course I…” Fjord stops and swallows. Gods, but it’s still a bit of a chore to make himself say aloud. Too many years running away. _Well, maybe it’s time to stop runnin’._ “Of course I feel… things. For you.”

Caleb stares at him, mouth slightly agape. The silence stretches and grows painful.

“I mean, I’m not sayin’—I’m not _expecting_ nothin’ from you, Caleb, I just.” Fjord huffs with frustration. “Maybe sittin’ naked in a bath ain’t the best place for this conversation.”

“Ah!” Like a jack-in-the-box whose lever has been unexpectedly tripped, Caleb springs into action. “Yes of course, let me just get you a towel. I’ll be right back.”

A towel has to be requested from the sparse inn staff, since the helpful young people with the tub had been unable to provide one, so Fjord has a moment to gather himself and his thoughts before stepping out of the water. Caleb averts his eyes politely as he helps him up, and there’s a bit of an awkward shuffle before Fjord is safely ensconced in the towel, on the bed, watching as Caleb helps dispose of the bathwater and the tub itself.

Fjord must doze off for a minute, because he’s jerked awake by the smell of roasted meat and fresh bread. He’s sprawled across the mattress on his back, still buck naked and a bit damp in places; the towel has been tucked around his hips for modesty, but it’s not much. The towel was made with average humans in mind, not barrel-chested half-orcs with sturdy thighs and half-chubs sitting proudly in the cradles of their hips.

He pushes himself upright slowly, rubbing his face to wake himself up, and looks around. There is food sitting on the nightstand, and a little note on the tray beside it. His clothes have been taken away (to be laundered, presumably), but someone has left a well-worn nightshirt folded at the foot of the bed. He slips it on—it’s a little tight in the shoulders, but it’ll suffice—and reaches for the note, heart in his throat.

It’s Caleb’s hand; he would recognize it almost anywhere, he thinks. He’s lost count of the hours he’s spent watching Caleb patiently copy spells into his book as they’ve traveled together.

_Fjord—the food and the shirt are for you. I am having your clothes cleaned; they will be returned to you tomorrow. I have held off the teeming masses for now, but do not be surprised if Beau or Jester poke their heads in to check on you. Sorry for not waking you, but I didn’t have the heart. You seemed so peaceful, and your dreams so pleasant. -C_

Fjord rubs the back of his neck, which is suddenly hot and prickling. _And your dreams so pleasant._ What is _that_ supposed to mean?

There comes a twittering little tap at his door, and he hastily shoves the note beneath his pillow for reasons he can’t quite discern. It wasn’t as if it were a _dirty_ note. Or was it?

“Come in,” he calls, surprised whoever it is has waited this long.

He’s doubly surprised when Jester reveals herself, slipping into the room with a brilliant smile. “You’re awake!” she chirps, though her path to the bed is somewhat less boisterous than he was expecting. When she comes closer he can see how tired she is: lank hair, bruised eyes, a minor cut across her face that she must have forgotten to heal. But she doesn't let any of it slow her down—she begins fussing over him immediately, checking his pulse and the color of his sclera.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he promises, though he lets her pull aside the collar of the borrowed shirt to check his shoulder. “Caduceus knows what he's doing I guess.”

"He really does. I have to get him to teach me that one." The gravity of her voice discomfits him—she sounds so _worn_ —but her smile is back an instant later. “But you are awake and healing, and that’s what’s important! Here, eat your dinner, you need to keep up your strength.”

She ends up practically spoon-feeding him. It’s a simple meal, but well-seasoned, and he only realizes how hungry he was when he finds himself devouring the entire plate in only a few minutes. Jester clucks at him happily and tugs on his collar one more time.

“Just to check,” she says, and she rubs the new skin over his collarbone with nervous fingers. “You look so handsome in Caleb's shirt!”

He feels a pang of strange excitement. “It’s Caleb's?”

“Of course, see the dirt on the sleeves?” Her eyes glimmer with laughter. “Whose did you think it was?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The innkeeper’s, maybe,” he mumbles. “Or Clay's.”

“Well Caduceus tried, but Caleb insisted on giving his up,” Jester says. She hops to her feet and gives him a motherly look. “Get some rest, Fjord. Okay?”

“I will, Jess. I promise.”

Satisfied, she leaves the room and closes the door gently behind her. It’s as if she took all the energy in the room with her, because as soon as she’s gone Fjord sags with weariness until he’s leaning back against the pillows. The faint crinkle of paper reminds him of Caleb’s note, and he rescues it before it can get too crushed. The sun is starting to set outside, so he holds the piece of parchment close to his nose to read it again.

 _And your dreams so pleasant._ Fjord gnaws on his lower lip. He can’t remember having any dreams, doesn’t know if he was asleep long enough to even have one.

He curses himself for falling asleep like a child. He could have waited long enough for the confirmation that Caleb did not return the tender feelings Fjord bore for him, and then at least his fickle curiosity would be satisfied.

Fjord tries to wait up for him—he’s certainly not venturing out of the room in only a thin shirt that barely reaches his upper thigh—but weariness beckons. His mind wanders back to Caleb’s hands tender on his body, slick with soap, Caleb’s sweetly anxious burr as he begged Fjord’s forgiveness for the best kiss of Fjord’s life. Not that he had many to compare it to, but still.

He drifts off this way, holding the note in one hand, memories of Caleb’s hands clinging to his subconscious. He _does_ dream then, of holding Caleb in his arms, of bearing him down to the mattress, of kissing his mouth and the sweet softness of his throat. Fjord’s mouth waters in his sleep, and the note is crumpled in his hand as his muscles tense and release. _Please, Fjord, please_ , Caleb cries out in his dream, and Fjord opens his mouth and swallows him whole.

* * *

Fjord wakes up warm and cozy, bundled beneath a generous helping of blankets. The pillow beneath his cheek is firm, but smells like clean cotton and herbs and skin. There is a gentle weight over his shoulders, and soft pressure in his hair. Fjord groans happily and nuzzles in closer.

A soft chuckle in his ear rouses him and he blinks his eyes open, brain scrabbling for purchase on uncertain ground. It’s Caleb he’s swaddled around, he realizes. Fjord is cuddled up against his side, head on his chest, pinning him firmly to the mattress with one arm and a leg between Caleb’s thighs. Fjord’s borrowed shirt has ridden up at some point in the night, and there’s very little doubt that he’s poking a morning stiffy into Caleb’s hip.

“Sleep well?” Caleb murmurs, voice rough with sleep. It lifts the fine hairs on the back of Fjord’s neck to hear it, and sends a pulse of warmth through his groin.

“I… yes. Caleb, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He struggles to push himself up and away, knowing how Caleb hates to have his personal space intruded upon, and his shoulder twinges warningly under the weight. “Ow, fuck—”

“Fjord, lay back down, for goodness’ sake. Stop panicking.” Caleb grips him by his borrowed shirtfront and pulls him back down to the mattress. Surprised by his strength and his vehemence, Fjord lets himself be dragged, nestling his nose into the crook of Caleb’s neck for good measure.

“You don’t… mind, then?” Fjord asks, and is horrified to hear his voice crack somewhere in the middle.

“Of course not.” There’s a moment of quiet and then Caleb adds, almost somber, “I am not averse to touch, you know. I just prefer to expect it, when I can.”

Moving slowly, Fjord drapes his arm back across Caleb’s stomach. The rise and fall of his diaphragm is hypnotic, and Fjord watches it for a little while before stirring again. “When did you come to bed?”

“Late. Things got a bit… out of hand downstairs. Everyone sort of peeled off to their various rooms and I didn’t want to intrude so. I figured you wouldn’t mind if you were already sleeping. You _don’t_ mind, do you?” he adds, a touch anxiously.

Fjord bites back an incredulous smile. “D’you really have to ask?”

“I like to. Just in case.” Caleb begins carding his fingers through Fjord’s hair again. “Good dreams, then?”

Fjord shuts his eyes and blushes hard against Caleb’s shoulder. “Very good.”

“Mmm.” Caleb gives his hair a bit of a tug and Fjord lets out a soft whine. “Fjord…”

“Mnh?”

Caleb’s heart is beating quicker beneath Fjord’s cheek. “Should we… discuss this?”

“Discuss… which bit?” He finally figures he’s not getting out of this without some kind of face-to-face interaction, so Fjord props himself up on his good elbow, which just happens to put him laying atop Caleb in a very nice way. Caleb is hard too, he realizes now, and it sends a gratified pang of desire coursing through him. “The bit where I’m turned on, and you’re turned on, and we’re in bed together? Or the part where I—” He falters, but Caleb’s patient expression spurs him on. “The part where I don’t really know what I’m doin’?”

“I’m not exactly a fount of expertise myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Caleb says, reaching up to tug on his hair again. Fjord growls deep in his throat and bows his head, dragging his nose along the exposed strip of Caleb’s collarbone. The resultant shudder is something he can feel all the way down to his deepest insides. “Fjord…”

“Hmm?” Fjord hums as he mouths slow and hot at the slope of Caleb’s neck. This part is no mystery to him, and anyway, it’s _Caleb_. The dearest man in all the world.

“Fjord,” Caleb says again—or gasps, really. He rucks up Fjord’s borrowed shirt— _Caleb's_  shirt, oh gods—and rolls his hips up slow. “ _Ja, ja_ , just so…”

He can’t get enough of the taste of Caleb’s skin. It’s clean, a little bit salty, rimed with a little bit of dust by virtue of the bone-dry town they’ve saved, and he swears he can taste the rapidfire pulse of blood beneath the skin as Caleb arches against his weight. “Tell me,” he growls, or maybe he’s begging. “Tell me what to do, what you like.”

“I like _this_.” Caleb’s hands are high up beneath his shirt, stroking skin indiscriminately, smoothing over planes of muscle and fat to the hollow of his spine. “Take this off, Fjord, _bitte_.”

He sits back on his heels obediently and struggles to pull the shirt over his head. It hugs him too tightly around the ribs and shoulders—Caleb enjoys loose-fitting, well-worn clothing, but he’s thin as a rail next to Fjord’s comfortable bulk—and he swears at the twinge of pain in his arm.

“I have it,” Caleb says, kneeling up beside him. Between the two of them, the shirt comes off in one piece, and then Caleb is right there in his lap, dressed down to his skin and hot as a live spark in Fjord’s arms. “You are so beautiful,” he says fiercely, Zemnian thick in his words as he cups Fjord’s face in his hands. “You are beautiful and breathing, and I would very much like to lie with you now, Fjord. If you will have me.”

Fjord laughs because he can’t help himself—with delight, with a bit of boyish wonder. Caleb burns more brightly than he hardly ever lets on, and perhaps his phrasing is a little stilted, a little old-fashioned, but Fjord loves every syllable of it. “Do as you like with me. Please,” he adds, trailing greedy fingers down Caleb’s flanks. Caleb holds him fast by his cheeks and kisses him, full and warm.

“Lay back,” he whispers against Fjord’s lips. “Let me feel you.”

Fjord obeys, head pointing the wrong way down the bed and a little askew, but he’s too preoccupied with the weight of Caleb in his lap to care much. His right arm is a little slow, but he can still grip Caleb’s arse, and he does so while his left wanders up and down and between, rubbing Caleb’s prick with an open palm. Caleb’s kisses turned hard-edged and he grinds down with a desperate, choked sound.

“Next time,” he breathes, “when you’re feeling better, I want you on top of me. Pushing me down into the mattress so I can hardly breathe. Ja?”

Fjord groans and grips him harder. “I think we can manage that, yeah.”

They are quiet then, for the most part. Caleb makes soft little noises in his throat, like he’s swallowing back shouts, and pours all his focus into kissing Fjord’s breath away. Fjord himself is too enthralled to make a racket. He huffs for breath in great ragged gulps and sucks on Caleb’s neck whenever he breaks from kisses long enough to allow it.

And it is Caleb, trembling, who finds the edge first. He ruts down eagerly on Fjord’s cock, catching it in the seam of his thigh and long his perineum, and he barely has to fist his own erection before he shudders and spills his seed across Fjord’s stomach. Fjord watches it all with enormous eyes, spellbound. Every crick and quiver of Caleb’s form is enrapturing to him, and witnessing his orgasm is nearly enough to bring Fjord to completion.

But then Caleb moves. First a sloppy kiss and a fist around Fjord’s dick, and then he crawls backward and puts his face right in it. Rubs his cheek against the shaft, laps at the head, suckles gently until Fjord thinks he might go mad.

“Caleb please,” he chokes out, fists straining in the sheets to avoid grabbing Caleb’s head. “Please, fuck, I can’t—”

Caleb looks up, smirks, and swallows him down. Not _all_ the way—Fjord’s a half-orc, his size is nothing to sneeze at—but a good halfway, until Fjord can feel himself bumping into the back of Caleb’s throat.

“I’m going to—” Fjord blurts, and then he comes, painting Caleb’s lips and chin in white.

Caleb wipes his mouth on the sheet corner and leans down to kiss him. Fjord’s mouth is a bit too numb to completely respond, but he reaches up with both hands and, trembling, cups Caleb’s face in his hands.

“Darlin’,” he slurs, “you’re beautiful.”

Caleb is a brilliant, burning red from ears to chest, but it seems to Fjord’s eyes that he blushes a little more at the compliment. “You’re sweet,” he murmurs against Fjord’s mouth.

The only response Fjord can muster is to kiss him back.

**Author's Note:**

> smol note: i have a variety of headcanons for everybody in the group, but in this particular fic Fjord is gay and inexperienced AF. Relateable my dude. 
> 
> SPOILERS AHEAD for episode 25: I started writing this before the whole kidnapping situation went down, so consider this to take place at some amorphous time after the Mighty Nein are reunited. I figure it'll take a long IRL amount of time for it to happen, but we all know in-game time moves faster than we think, so I put it at about a month and some change after Hupperdook.
> 
> EDIT 1/1/19: After going back to rereading this I've decided to tweak some things. Nothing crazy, just popping Caduceus in there and adjusting because literally right after I posted this Shit Went Down lmao. Time has passed, the story has changed, and it feels natural to adjust this one fic to fit.


End file.
